Bank of England

Submitted by Ronan Manly of Bullionstar

HSBC’s London Gold Vault: Is This Gold’s Secret Hiding Place?

HSBC’s main gold vault in London regularly comes under the media spotlight for a number of reasons. These reasons include:

a) the HSBC London vault stores a very large amount of gold on behalf of gold-backed Exchange Traded Funds, primarily the well-known SPDR Gold Trust (GLD)

b) along with the Bank of England vaults and JP Morgan vault, the HSBC vault is one of the 3 largest gold vaults in London

The gold bullion or “hidden gold mine” of various nation’s gold reserves stored in the vaults beneath the Bank of England have been covered by the BBC:

Under London’s streets lies a hidden gold mine.

The biggest catalyst for overnight markets, first reported on this site, was the announcement by Kuwait that its oil workers had ended their strike which disrupted oil production in the 4th largest OPEC producer for 3 days cutting it by as much as 1.7 mmb/d, and had served to offset the negative news from the Doha debacle. Kuwait Petroleum also added that it would boost output to 3m b/d within 3 days, which in turn has pressured the price of oil overnight, and the May WTI contract was back to just over $40 at last check, sliding 2%.

• Global Stocks Drop on Renewed Concerns About China (WSJ)
• Iron Ore's Rally Stalls as Goldman to Citigroup Forecast Retreat (BBG)
• EU and Turkey close to groundbreaking migrant deal (FT)
• Carney's `Brexit' Stance Under Fire as BOE Accused of Bias (BBG)
• Oil edges lower after Kuwait dents hopes for output freeze (Reuters)
• OECD Leading Indicators Point to Slowing Global Growth (WSJ)
• Treasuries Rally as Japan Yields Extend Record Low on Safety Bid (BBG)

Submitted by Ronan Manly of BullionStar

Update on Bundesbank Gold Repatriation 2015

Deutsche Bundesbank has just released a progress report on its gold bar repatriation programme for 2015 – “Frankfurt becomes Bundesbank’s largest gold storage location“.

During the calendar year to December 2015, the Bundesbank claims to have transported 210 tonnes of gold back to Frankfurt, moving circa 110 tonnes from Paris to Frankfurt, and just under 100 tonnes from New York to Frankfurt.